


New Families

by PrincessofPunk8



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessofPunk8/pseuds/PrincessofPunk8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After calling Daniel Bryan a turd leading up to Wrestlemania, Dean Ambrose and Dolph Ziggler managed to strike up an unlikely friendship. Summer Rae, being Dolph's girlfriend, was brought into this friendship and quickly adopted Dolph Ziggler as her own friend. This is the story of their friendship, and more importantly, their family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Families

**Author's Note:**

  * For [penelo14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penelo14/gifts).



> Honestly the hardest fic I have ever written, so I hope it is enjoyed!

“It’s two weeks to Elimination Chamber Summer, how do you feel about being in the elimination Chamber match, fighting to keep your title?” Summer just raised an eyebrow at the announcer in front of her, and hoisted her title higher on her shoulder.

“Do you expect my answer to be different because I’m a woman Michael?” she asked. “I feel the same as all of the other champions that have gone in there to compete over the years. Nervous about the chamber, yet honoured to be in it.”

“And one final question Summer if I may,” Cole continued, undeterred by her look of utter exasperation. “You, Dolph and Dean have formed somewhat of a…unconventional alliance since Wrestlemania. What impact do you…”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” she interrupted. “It’s not _going_ to have an effect. See, this ‘unconventional alliance’? It’s not going to cause them to try and interfere. The only reason that we have interfered in the past few weeks is to protect him from the deranged actions of Seth Rollins and his monkey crew. Dolph and I, we’re more family than Roman Reigns. Roman calls him a brother, but he does nothing to help Dean.” She spread her arms wide. “Take the cinderblock incident. Reigns was in the building, and he _let_ it happen. That’s on him. We look after each other.” Summer turned to leave, and almost ran into Roman.

“Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is,” he challenged.

“Next week on Raw,” Summer agreed. “Better make sure you show up to the party this time.” She stepped around him and walked away.

* * *

  “Family Sum, really?” Dolph laughed. He captured her with an arm around her waist and drew her in for a kiss.

“Hey, you guys can be the parents who scar the rest of the family,” Dean snorted from his position against the opposite wall. Summer laughed and led the way down the hallway, safely concealed from the cameras by the hallway corner. 

“Well, somehow you guys became friends when you connected over Daniel Bryan being a turd,” she pointed out.

“And then your boyfriend got you into the ladder match,” Dean teased.

“Which she won all on her own,” Dolph jumped in to remind him, giving the Intercontinental championship on her shoulder an affectionate pat.

“And will continue to defend and retain all on her own thank you gentlemen,” she interrupted, pushing the door to the Diva’s locker room open wide and entering, leaving Dolph and Dean standing outside.

* * *

 “You focus on your title, I’ll take care of our boy,” Roman said, holding his hand out. Summer shook it, and squared her shoulders. After the two weeks leading up to Elimination Chamber had resulted in two matches, and a sole win for each one of them, they had called a tentative truce. Tonight, Summer knew she had to focus on her match. The Chamber was dangerous. She knew that. She had to have her head in the game if she didn’t want a career ending injury.

“Deep breath,” Roman advised. She inhaled, then stepped through the curtain.

* * *

 “You put up one hell of a fight Sum,” Dolph said as she stepped back through the curtain sans her title. She smiled at him, exhausted and a little sad.

“Emma deserved the win,” she said simply. “You and Roman got Dean?”

“We got it, go shower,” he promised. “You don’t have to jump in the ring to take one of Seth's dirty shots this time.” Summer grinned, knowing that that’s what Michael Cole’s real question had been going to be two weeks back. Jumping in the ring to defend one superstar against another, that was the sort of thing that a diva did if she was romantically attached to the superstar. Lita had done it a few times, or at least she had gotten involved in matches to defend her man. More recently, Lana had gotten a reputation for trying to protect Rusev. While she was pretty well known around the back as Dolph’s girl, she could certainly see how the fans had wondered if she was messing around with Dean – and Cole did tend to stick to questions the fans wanted answered. She flipped her boyfriend off, and headed back to the Divas showers.

* * *

Money in the Bank, came up quicker than anyone expected. Dean was booked in the World Heavyweight Championship match, and Roman had managed to get himself in the Ladder Match. Summer and Dolph had both put in a good word for him after seeing how he had actually protected Dean during Elimination Chamber, and really, he did kinda deserve it in Summer’s mind. Herself, well she managed to lose her rematch to leave Emma retaining the Intercontinental Championship. She’d snuck off to shower, not feeling up to facing her boys otherwise, and by the time Summer was back in front of the screens, she was just in time to find Dean sitting on a chair with the World Heavyweight Championship spread across his lap.

“I thought your match wasn’t until later!” she exclaimed. He turned and grinned at her.

“Yeah me too,” he admitted. “But apparently the twat appealed to Mommy and Daddy and got the match moved up.”

“And you won,” Summer said, unable to wipe her grin off her face.

“And I won,” Dean agreed. Summer flung her arms around his neck from behind him and hugged him tight.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered in his ear. She hugged him long enough for him to start to squirm, obviously uncomfortable and then let him go, taking a seat beside him. They watched the match intently, and when Roman triumphed at the end to raise the briefcase high, free finally of the metal cable, both Dean and Summer sported wide grins on their faces – grins that were quickly wiped away when Bray Wyatt appeared in the ring to push the ladder over, and ruin Romans moment of triumph, although he was a few seconds too late to stop him from getting the briefcase.

* * *

Dean groaned as he lay on the mat, facedown and in serious pain. Night of Champions had started off so well, he’d successfully defended his title against Brock Lesnar in one of the toughest matches of his WWE career. He’d managed to hang onto his title for three months, which at least was longer in days than Seth Rollins had hung onto his. Bray Wyatt, Ryback and Kane had been just a few of the challengers who had come up against him in that time, and he’d defended against them all. Roman had promised him a fair match when he cashed in his briefcase, and yet, just like Seth, he had betrayed him. Dean had just finished his match with Brock, and while he was in the ring with his arm held high yet barely able to stay upright, Roman had come running down the ramp to cash in. Dean hadn’t seen him, Roman had hit him with a spear as he turned when he realised the crowd was cheering, and then handed the ref the briefcase. It had been over almost before it had started, and when it was over, Dean was left with nothing but a deep seated sense of betrayal from his former brother. Laying on the mat, Dean’s mind was churning trying to figure out why Roman had done it, why he had been betrayed a second time. He had been so convinced that Roman was the one person who wouldn’t turn his back on him, and yet from the pounding in his body, Dean figured that he had been wrong. And as the ref helped him up, and helped him stagger up the ramp away from the ring, Dean had to wonder if it was Roman looking for personal glory, or whether it was something wrong with himself that made everyone desert him when he least expected it.

* * *

“Sum, I’m taking some time off,” Dean told her, his tone accepting no arguments. It had been two weeks since he’d lost the title to Roman, and in that time he hadn’t been able to face fighting his former brother again. The betrayal went deeper than his friends realised, and the war that he was waging with himself was getting out of his control. He knew that his friends were worried about him, the way that Ryback and Truth kept inviting him out for drinks after the show proved that it wasn’t as well hidden as he thought. And with Dolph or Summer inviting themselves into his hotel room every night, only for him to throw them out after an hour or so when he claimed that he was tired, he knew that there was no way he could continue to hide the depths of his pain from his two best friends in the company, just as much as he knew that there was no way that the two of them wouldn’t eventually catch on to his self-destructive behaviour sooner or later.

“Dean I know that you're hurting, but running away with your tail between your legs isn’t the way to deal with it,” Summer told him, spinning on her heel to face him. “And Roman isn’t going to just go away, you're going to have to put him in his place.”

“Summer…” he started.

“No Dean, I know how you must feel but…” she started over the top of him.

“Sum, you don’t know how I feel,” he interrupted. “You don’t know what it’s like to have not one, but two brothers betray you. You don’t know what it’s like to lose one, and have the other swear to stand by you then cash in the briefcase on you when you're at your lowest. You lost your championship to Emma in a fair fight. I thought that would be how I lost mine too, especially when Roman won the briefcase.” He sighed, suddenly feeling weary to the bone. “I was so sure that Roman and I would have this amazing match, and instead…instead Sum, he cashed in when I was already beat up. He betrayed me, and I just need to go home and rest because I feel like every day I have to see him prancing around, I break a little more.” Summer studied him for a moment before she stepped forward and rested her open palm on his cheek.

“You're right,” she said softly. “I don’t know how you feel, and I’m sorry I assumed I did. Go home, rest, and come back to us stronger and better than ever. We’ll all be here waiting for you.” Dean let one corner of his mouth curl up in a mockery of his former smile.

“In case of emergencies,” he said and slipped a key to his front door into her hand before he pulled away from her gentle touch and walked away. As he kept his eyes focused on the exit door, he resisted the urge to go back and pull the key out of her hand. As much as he didn’t want to force her to see him at his absolute worst, the lack of control he’d had since Roman had taken his title – both with his drinking, and with the pills that he’d thought he’d kicked years ago – a little part of him knew that without the eyes of his friends around him, he would probably need a good kick to the rear in order to survive this battle inside.

* * *

 “Dean Ambrose, you open this door right now!” Summer banged her open palm on Dean’s front door. She waited a few moments, then when there was no answer she pulled her key ring out. Dean had given her a key a few months back, just in case of emergencies, but after a month without seeing him, she was fairly certain this counted as an emergency. She pushed the door open cautiously, slipping inside without a sound. Summer wrinkled her nose at the smell, putting off the urge to open a window in favour of finding her friend.

“Sum?” Dean mumbled as she entered the bedroom, unable to resist the urge to gasp in horror. Dean lay in nothing but his jeans on the bed, beer bottles littered around the bed on the floor and a half empty one on the nightstand.

“What did you do to yourself Dean?” she whispered, giving in and throwing the window wide. She sat on the bed next to him and rested a hand on his forehead.

“Waitin for you to leave,” he slurred, his glassy eyes staring at her. “E’ryone always leaves.”

“Not me,” Summer told him. “You don’t get to get rid of me.”

“Roman did. Seth did. Mom did.”

“And Roman, we will deal with him,” Summer promised. “We got your back Dean. We’re not leaving, we’re not traitors.” Dean gave her a crooked smile.

“Now go shower,” she demanded. “We’re taking your title back, but you gotta act like you want it.”

* * *

 By the time Dean got out of the shower, Summer had picked up the mess in his room and was camped out on his couch with Raw on his TV.

“It’s my time,” Roman was saying to Cole. “Being compared to Dean Ambrose all the time got real old, real fast. I’m proving that I’m better than him. I’m proving every day that I’m better than him. That I deserved to main event Wrestlemania. I’ve beaten Dolph Ziggler. I’ve beaten Ryback. I beat R-Truth. The supposed best that this company has to offer as fodder for me to beat. Ambrose hasn’t been seen in a month.”

“What a twat,” Summer muttered. Dean made his way to the couch and stretched out, his head in her lap. She carded her fingers through his hair absently.

“Keep that up and I’ll fall asleep,” he warned. Summer smiled serenely out of his view and kept her fingers moving.

“Thanks mom,” he muttered. Summer twitched her fingers and tugged his hair. He snorted and drifted off to sleep with his cheeky grin turning up one side of his mouth.

* * *

 “Who’s going to be my next challenger?” Roman roared. He was standing in the middle of the ring, one foot on Dolph’s chest. The blonde had gone up against him again, and had lost through Romans dirty tactics. Suddenly, Dean’s music hit and the crowd went wild. Roman watched in disbelief as Dean bounced to the top of the ramp and just raised an arm to point at his former brother. Roman growled and hoisted his title high in the air, daring Dean to defy the status quo and challenge him again.

“I’m still owed my rematch,” Dean said, the mic in his left hand picking his words up. “And I will claim it. And claim my title back. Believe. That. Brother.” With those words, he dropped his mic and strode backstage, leaving Roman standing tall and the crowd alternating between cheering for Dean and booing Roman.

* * *

 Amidst the chant for tables from the crowd, Dean climbed onto the announce table and prepared to hit Roman with Dirty Deeds. It had taken some convincing from Summer, but eventually he had agreed to take Roman on in a TLC match at the TLC PPV. She had been right in pointing out that TLC was the first real PPV where the Shield had made its mark three years ago, and now, preparing to take back his title, he felt it was almost a poetic end to the era of brotherhood. He hit Dirty Deeds, Roman crashing through the announce table, and managed to regain his wits enough to scramble for the ring. He climbed the ladder slowly, with every rung closer to the belt feeling like it was another step away from the betrayal of the Shield, another step away from his demons and another step closer to a new life, with a new family. He reached up, his fingers just brushing the belt and took another few steps so that he was balancing on top of the too short ladder. He managed to snag the belt in his fingers, and unhook it, before he sunk down to sit on the ladder, the belt clutched tightly to his chest. He barely heard the bell ring, but he saw Summer, Dolph, and the rest of his friends come rushing down the ramp, smiles wide on all their faces. Dean climbed down the ladder carefully, still aware of his judgement being clouded, and was instantly seized in tight hugs all around. He may have lost his brothers, but he was quickly realising that Summer was right. That he had a new family that he wasn’t getting rid of anytime soon.


End file.
